OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
While most of the domaining industry seems to be ecstatic about the sale of the domain name Voice.com for $30 million I can’t say I share this excitement.
First of all this seems like a one time thing. We need to get maybe ten 8 figure domain sales, tens of 7 figure sales, and so on, over a year for me to really see that something is changing for the better.
The fact that the buyer here is not exactly a solid company doesn’t help. Do they really have a revenue producing product yet? EOS seems to be questionable at best.
Yet they managed to raise $4.1 billion in their ICO last year and they have a lot of cash to burn. And this is exactly what they are doing. This crypto money is not exactly coming out of the pocket of their CEO that makes the decisions. So this kind of spending, including spending $150 million to build their social media platform, seems crazy to me.
Yes, the domaining industry wants some gain over this sale but let’s not lose our heads.
Many people have raised concerns over Block.One and between me and you we all know where this company is headed.
Sorry to say but their social media platform will probably fail as most social media platforms do. This is a nice domaining story but I see Voice.com on the market again in a few years.
Is Voice.com a $30 million domain name? Today? Probably not. The buyer certainly overpaid.
Don’t get me wrong. I am always saying that we domain investors are selling way too cheap. And I am not just talking about the super premium domains. I am talking about most of the domains I see sold to end users. The average of the industry that is at about $2,500 to $5,000 per domain (depending on the platform) is very cheap for what a domain name offers to a business and to what a business pays to launch or its carrying costs.
And indeed there have been some nice sales lately but these are not enough to lift the entire industry. Maybe they can help a little the value of the super premium domain names.
I don’t see how the sale of a private island in the Caribbean to a multimillionaire can help raise the value of a small home in Cleveland. (sorry Cleveland!)
I really don’t see how this sale could really help the average domain name investor.
Could this sale truly raise awareness of what domains cost? It doesn’t hurt but I don’t think so. Buyers have always dismissed high domain name sales in the past.
Maybe the sale of Voice.com could be a good selling point for super premium domains and may add some value to them. But how much more value? 10%? 15%? Then you really need to combine a seller that is not at all motivated with a super motivated buyer that is also spending carelessly money they made out of thin air. This is the only way this sale can be replicated. And that is really a long shot.
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“We need to get maybe ten 8 figure domain sales, tens of 7 figure sales, and so on, over a year for me to really see that something is changing for the better.”
When the Dow gets to 200,000 points I’ll admit the stock market is finally doing ok.
What happens if a single stock raises the Dow?
Then people make money.
The point is there has been two 8 figure public sales in history. If your gauge for the market improving is 10 per year that will never happen because your gauge is totally unrealistic. Even 1 every 5 years would be remarkable.
People that own that 1 stock make money. Anyway your stock analogy was not very successful.
I said maybe 10 per year. The whole point was that all sales must improve. 1 8-figure sale every 5 years means nothing if not accompanied by more 7-6-5-figure sales than what we have today.
Its a marketing play. A very good and expensive one. If the seller got $30 million in converted cryto to cash, then he made out very well. If its crypto cash/stock, we need to define what cash is….. USD? If stock, that’s a hefty tax hit. BTW, I think these generic names are worth $30 million but have yet to reach their yield in today’s markets.
It was most centainly all cash. (All converted from crypto? But that does not change anything for the seller.)
look we are supposed to kick the sh-t out of the buyer. we aren’t friends. once the domain is sold BYE BYE that’s it. SO RIP THEIR DICK OFF AND TOSS IT IN THE RIVER.! or you can listen to the bald fool and plant guy on the new Sherpa show, imo they would have said a few months ago VOICE.COM … mmm voice.com ugh … I put it around $120k . knowing damn well it is a million dollar domain IN MY OPINION that’s what they do over there. they say one thing and do another behind the scenes . (in my opinion) the old Sherpa shows (Classic Coca Cola) were the best with Schwartz/Berkens. “run over the buyer” brut force no bullshit!!!. now its New Coke the show sux .
when people raise a lot of money, they usually spend it foolishly
this sale has nothing to do with the domain industry
i agree with everything you stated in this post
It is definitely a rare occurrence.
There was at least one more 8 figure domain sale. Its not publish yet.
We might have 2 more later this year.
I couldn’t disagree with you more on this one, Konstantinos. It’s nice that you are concerned about the buyer’s fiscal responsibility and business plan prospect of success, but I want every buyer to use a good percentage of their cash infusion for their domain name purchases. Real estate is not a perfect analogy for domain names. So yes, the news around voice.com and other high profile domain sales do raise awareness about the domain aftermarket prices. It may or may not raise the prices but at least legitimize the asking prices.
This is not about a %. $30m could be a small %.
Still. It is good news for the industry as a whole and sheds some much needed spotlight on the domain aftermarket.
It’s nice too see big domain sales, but a lot of those sales lately have been paid with crypto one way or another. ICO funds or crypto itself. Not the cleanest money.
But as a seller, cash is cash, a sale is a sale. Just make sure you can sleep at night knowing that you might of helped launder money.
The way EOS raised money, was most greediest of all ICOs, it is by far biggest ICO. And 30 mil for them is nothing, they have amazing marketing sense.
They are not out to make voice new network, they are out to make more money. EOS is clean in terms of money, their founding team starts one project after the other.
I do think this sale is relevant in one sense, the EOS team is probably most marketing oriented team i seen in crypto. They believed that 30mil is worth the value of the domain, and even though they do have money to throw around, they are not stupid. Hence, it is peak price for people who can a) throw the money around and b) can get most out of it.
I am with Konstantinos in terms of that i dont think this sale will make much difference on overall domain market.
Marketing is good. But sometimes people market the shit out of nothing and this is when bad things start to happen.